Category: Power Elite

Part 3 of 3: Bilderberg and the Media

The sparseness of mainstream media coverage of Bilderberg’s meetings has long been a topic of concern for those who are wary of the annual gathering. This suspicion has evolved into a mythology that the mainstream media has conspired with Bilderberg’s leadership to suppress mention of its very existence. One key proponent of this mythology was the late Jim Tucker, who chased the Bilderbergers for many years for Spotlight and later American Free Press. In his Bilderberg Diary (2005), Tucker claimed there was a “virtually complete” media “blackout” on Bilderberg in the United States (p.4), with the major newspapers and TV networks having “participated in vows of secrecy” (p.5). Tucker claimed the Washington Post had only mentioned Bilderberg “four times” and the New York Times had just mentioned it once when “one of the luminaries died at a meeting and the obituary writer, and his editors, innocently let the world slip through” (p.7). More recently, Mark Dice’s book The Bilderberg Group Facts and Fiction (2015) sought to reinforce this mythology by making the questionable assertion that “for over half a century there wasn’t more than a peep about the meeting in the American mainstream media” (p.1), which he attributed to some mysterious “arrangement” between Bilderberg and the press (p.5).

As I have detailed elsewhere, none of these claims withstand close scrutiny. Major media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic have used the word “Bilderberg” with seeming impunity for decades, mentioning the location of the meetings, some of the people connected to it, and even leaked some details from the meetings. Tucker’s claims, for example, are easily refuted: a search on the New York Times archive finds 59 articles mentioning Bilderberg rather than just one and a search on the Washington Post archive finds 37 articles about Bilderberg (pre-1995) instead of only four. The issue is not the frequency of the reporting about Bilderberg, or even mentioning that it exists, but the quality. Despite all the reporting on the fact the meetings are happening, detailed reporting about what was actually said is and remains rare. The 2015 Telfs-Buchen meeting was no exception, with both the mainstream and the alternative media largely failing to penetrate Bilderberg’s veil.

Part 2 of 3: Dissecting the Bilderberg Agenda

Among the many differences between the G7 and Bilderberg meetings, perhaps the most significant is the levels of transparency. At last year’s G7 meeting in Schloss Elmau, for example, the German Government not only provided the programme for the “Meeting of Heads of State and Government”, but also overviews of the twodays of meetings, the summit declaration, which essentially summarised the outcomes of their discussions and a number of press releases and other documents. G7 participants also spoke to the media about the meeting. The White House, for example, provided transcripts of Obama’s speeches and pressconferences, as well as a Fact Sheet and extended press briefing on the G7. This level of detail, and in particular the willingness of its participants to be cross-examined by the media, means that the achievements or otherwise of the G7 are easier to analyse.

Part 1 of 3: Is Bilderberg More Important Than The G7?

According to some observers, last year’s Bilderberg Meeting, held over 11-14 June, 2015 at the Interalpen Hotel, near the town of Telfs-Buchen in Austria, was a more significant event than the Group of Seven meeting that had just preceded it across the border in Germany. Bilderberg is “every bit as important as the G7”, claimed The Guardian’s (Jun. 08, 2015) lone correspondent, Charlie Skelton; if not a “much more decisive meeting place [ein viel entscheidenderes Treffen statt]”, wrote Thorsten Schmitt from Extrem News (May 30, 2015). Yet some of the Bilderberg meeting participants – the few that deigned to even speak or write about it – insisted that the 2015 gathering was a very interesting but ultimately benign occasion. Michael O’Leary, CEO of Irish airline Ryanair and newly appointed Bilderberg Steering Committee member, for example, after mocking claims it was a “big conspiracy” told Irish radio that his first Bilderberg meeting had been a “terrific experience” and “very educational.” Another first time participant, Trine Eilertsen, Political Editor of the Norwegian newspaper Aftenpostenwrote that the “discussions and introductions” at Bilderberg were “very useful because participants spoke so freely.” But she also dismissed as “distant from reality”, a columnist writing in a rival publication, Aftenbladet (Jun. 13, 2015) who criticised her participation and considered it “naïve” of Eilertsen not to see anything sinister in a secret meeting of billionaires, politicians and journalists.

Historian Niall Ferguson discusses his book Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist which looks at the early life of Henry Kissinger. Mr. Ferguson is interviewed by Carla Anne Robbins, Council on Foreign Relations Adjunct Senior Fellow.

US President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to Beijing in 1972 is considered by some analysts to be the “master stroke in modern American diplomacy”, if not the most visible aspect of Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s effort to “reshape American foreign policy”, one that “transformed the Cold War.”[1] Yet, according to Daniel Estulin, it was the Bilderberg Group that “took the decision for the U.S. to establish formal relations with China before Nixon’s administration made it public policy.”[2] This is a contentious allegation, for which Estulin provides no evidence of in his book The True Story of the Bilderberg Group (2007). Estulin has attributed the claim to documents shown to him by the late Jim Tucker,[3] although Tucker made no such claims in his Bilderberg Diary. It also seems that the American Free Press, Tucker’s former employer, do not possess such documents,[4] with none of their reporting displaying knowledge of such material. A 2014 report by Tucker’s successor Mark Anderson, for example, claimed the Bilderbergers “apparently worked well in advance on what became normalized relations with China,” citing two Bilderberg conferences as evidence:

The 1969 [Bilderberg] meeting included just two admitted topics: “Elements of instability in Western society,” along with a look at “conflicting attitudes within the Western world toward relations with the U.S.S.R. and other Communist states of Eastern Europe.”

At the 1956 meeting, the Bilderbergers considered the causes of growth of anti-Western nations within the United Nations, along with “a common approach by the Western world toward China and the emergent nations of South and East Asia.”[5]

The source for Anderson’s information, however, appears to be no more than the topic lists for each meeting at the official Bilderberg Meetings website (see Figure 1).[6]

Figure 1: Agenda Topics for 1956 Bilderberg Meeting

11-13 May 1956, Fredensborg, Denmark

Review of developments since the last Conference

The causes of the growth of anti-Western blocs, in particular in the United Nations

The role played by anti-colonialism in relations between Asians and the West

A common approach by the Western world towards China and the emergent nations of South and East Asia

The communist campaign for political subversion or control of the newly emancipated countries of Asia

How the West can best meet Asian requirements in the technical and economic fields

Part One: A Portrait of an Insider

Author’s Note: This was part one of a planned two part study of John C. Whitehead (1922-2015), the former Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs and the holder of numerous other positions. This article which originally appeared on the Martin Frost website in 2008, has been revised and updated to take note of Whitehead’s death earlier this year, and to incorporate a range of other new information that has come to light. Part Two, which examines Whitehead’s role in the successful effort in 2005 to prevent the Senate confirmation of Ambassador John R. Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations, after a lengthy delay to locate and incorporate new data, will hopefully be completed in coming months.

Introduction

On February 7, 2015, at the advanced age of 92, former banker and Reagan Administration official John C. Whitehead passed away. Whitehead’s death prompted a torrent of overwhelmingly positive eulogising from his various friends, acquaintances, former work colleagues, Wall Street, and from the numerous non-government organizations that he had given both his time and financial support. The CEO and President of Goldman Sachs issued a memorandum to all their employees to lament Whitehead’s passing and to praise his “enormous grace and integrity” and his legacy that would “endure in the institutions he lead.”[1] The President of Global Financial Integrity (GFI) International described him as a “true Statesman and an American Hero”; the Carnegie Corporation mourned the loss of a their former Trustee, “a great American and a patriot”; the Asia Society described its former Chairman of its Board of Trustees as “one of our greatest friends and champions”; the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) paid tribute to a “True UN Champion” and a “tower of strength” whose “generosity enabled many good things to happen”; and the Secretary-General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA), marked the passing of a “great leader and dear friend” who was also “truly a global citizen.”[2] “In a world of growing fragmentation”, observed Henry Kissinger in his eulogy, Whitehead had “exuded universal principles.”[3] US Senator John McCain expressed his sadness at the death of his “friend”, and paid tribute to Whitehead’s:

remarkable career spanning global finance and public service stands as a testament to a life devoted to causes greater than one’s own self-interest.[4]

Reading this sad litany, one cannot help but ask: who was John C. Whitehead? How could this seemingly obscure citizen attract so much high-level praise? And how could he be celebrated as a both an American “patriot” and a “global citizen”?

In the [redacted], is a 1964 memorandum from Curtis J. Hoxter to H. J. “Jack” Heinz II. Heinz helped found and fund the Bilderberg group, and was on the Steering Committee at the time. Hoxter ran a public relations marketing company. I can only assume that Heinz or the Bilderberg group themselves had hired him.

The memorandum concerns an October 28, 1963 editorial in the Richmond News Leader, titled “The Bilderbergers.” They weren’t happy about it at all, and Hoxter was tasked to get to the bottom of it. They were worried about the upcoming Bilderberg conference, in March, to be held in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The article and the subsequent memorandum are reproduced below (italic and bold emphasis added).

Hoxter’s report is quite revealing. Bilderberg were very sensitive about any press, let alone anything that cast them in a negative light. Hoxter produces something akin to an intelligence report—on the newspaper, its editors, and the political situation in Virginia—replete with a half-baked conspiracy theory about who may have been behind it.

There wasn’t a byline on the article, but Hoxter found out pretty quick that it was in fact James P. Lucier who wrote it. After first talking with his boss, he then engaged in an hour-long conversation with Lucier about the matter.

Both Hoxter and Heinz have since died, but James P. Lucier stillworks as a journalist.

I failed to find his email. It’d be interesting to get his take on these events, and if a “direct confrontation” from Bilderberg occurred as Hoxter, in conclusion, suggested they should do. I’m sure Lucier is oblivious to the fact that the memorandum even exists—it has never been published and sits in a dusty archive—let alone what it contains and what they say about him.

In many a dark corner, there floats a whisper that the world is ruled by persons unseen. At some appointed time, silent limousines deliver a group of faceless men to a heavily guarded mansion where whole continents are carved up and put together around a table. These men, a kind of Mafia of international politics, are called the Bilderbergers.

We have always taken our Bilderbergers with mustard. Back in April of 1957, Westbrook Pegler reported that the Bilderbergers met in a heavily guarded session at St. Simon’s Island, off the coast of Georgia; but Peg was about the only newsman who saw them. In the summer of 1962, an early edition of the New York Times noted that a group of American diplomats were going to Stockholm to attend “a secret meeting of men of great wealth.” But the news mysteriously was crowded out of the final edition which is preserved on microfilm.

Author’s note: This essay was originally published on the Martin Frost website back in 2008. After a lengthy delay, Part 2 will eventuate later this year covering both the rise of the neo-conservatives and the prospects for world government.

‘I believe…that a grand game of chess is being played on a level that we can barely imagine, and we are pawns.’Milton William Cooper, Behold a Pale Horse, (1991)

‘The basic thing is the establishment. The establishment is dying…’President Richard Nixon, 13 March 1973[1]

‘If you were a member of the Council [on Foreign Relations] 15 years ago…you knew damn well that the conversation either was policy or would-be policy. Today, it is just interesting talk.’National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1977[2]

1. The Elite Unity Hypothesis

One of the central assumptions of most studies about the New World Order is that a covert combination of the most economically and politically powerful people in the world, otherwise known as the ‘Establishment’, ‘Illuminati’, the ‘Insiders’, the ‘Brotherhood of the Snake’, the ‘Syndicate’ or even the ‘Committee of the 300’ – said to be secretly operating within and above the highest levels of government – are united in seeking to establish a ‘One World Government’ or ‘global fascist superstate.’ When describing this power-elite clique, most researchers into the New World Order typically refer to a wide-ranging network of policy-planning organisations, such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderbergers, and the Trilateral Commission; and secret societies, such as the Illuminati, Freemasons, Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove and the Templars. Membership of these organisations is said to be limited to selected politicians, government officials, academics, businessmen, bankers and journalists; in other words the leading private and public individuals in society. This exclusive group is charged with implementing, justifying, hiding and ultimately benefiting from the sole objective to which all these ‘Insiders’ are believed to be committed: world government.

To readers of the myriad works on the alleged New World Order conspiracy this might seem like a self-evident truth unworthy of further comment. However it is important to realise that for many researchers these powerful advocates of world government (or global governance) are not some isolated segment of the uppermost tiers of the political, economic and military hierarchies; they are the power-elite. They are not just the majority of a super-rich minority; they are its dominant players and world government is said to be their only objective. For the purposes of this study we shall refer to this belief or assumption that the power-elite is united around the goal of establishing world government as the ‘Elite Unity Hypothesis’ (EUH).

A cursory review of the literature reveals the EUH to be the dominant paradigm. Look at almost any book on the ‘New World Order’ conspiracy and one will find this sinister network of individuals, organisations and secret societies is not only presented as being already firmly in control of all national governments, but also unanimous in its support for world government. Gary Allen and Larry Abraham, for example, authors of the bestselling None Dare Call It Conspiracy (1971) which perhaps did the most to popularise theories about the N.W.O, asserted that there was a ‘self-perpetuating conspiratorial clique’ of ‘power-seeking billionaires’ who ‘from the very highest levels manipulate government policy’ in their bid to establish ‘a government over all the world.’[3] John F. McManus claims in The Insiders (2004) that ‘for several decades, America has been run by a group of Establishment Insiders’, who are all members of the CFR, and whose collective goal is nothing less than to realise the ‘world government scheme of CFR founder Edward Mandell House.’[4]

Is the Bilderberg Group negotiating foreign policy? Is this where the ruling elite come to a consensus to guide the direction of the world in their favour? Or is it simply “just another conference?” Or, are the “conspiracy theorists” right? What is the evidence? How were they first discovered? What are they doing? And should the public be concerned? Do they choose who the next president of the United States will be? Do they covertly coordinate economic booms and busts? Do they manipulate foreign policy and decide which wars will be launched and when from behind these closed doors? (pp.6-7).

These are all excellent questions. Unfortunately Mr Dice fails to answer them adequately, if at all in some cases. To be sure, he presents information which he clearly thinks answers these questions, but Dice does a poor job of demonstrating the Bilderberg Group is behind the raft of misdeeds he catalogues. He cites some evidence that suggests some Bilderberg participants support policies he clearly dislikes, but more often than not, he assumes this makes them Bilderberg actions without bothering to make the extra effort to prove it.

Myths and unverified claims are the mainstay of Bilderberg reporting. They appeal to our suspicion that a great deal is being concealed at the highly secretive Bilderberg conferences and to our lack of trust in politicians and corporate elites to tell us the truth about who went and what was said. Numerous myths and unverified claims about Bilderberg have been bandied about in this past week ahead of the 63rd Bilderberg conference, currently underway at the Interalpen Hotel, near the town of Telfs-Buchen in Austria. One that caught my eye was this little snippet in a report by Infowars reporter Paul Joseph Watson about how the Bilderbergers were backing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run for the White House:

Her husband Bill Clinton attended the 1991 meeting in Germany shortly before becoming President and he attended again in 1999 when the conference was held in Sintra, Portugal (despite Clinton’s lie that he had not attended in 15 years) (Infowars, Jun. 08, 2015).

That Bill Clinton attended the 1991 Bilderberg meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany is not in dispute. His participation was noted in a number of media reports at the time. Furthermore, Clinton devotes a couple of paragraphs to his participation at the conference in his autobiography My Life (2004), noting that he was “stimulated” by his conversations with the Europeans he met at the conclave (p.367).